It’s hard to believe, but we’ve just wrapped up the second year of the Thrive Kitchen! For those of you who have followed my journey, this is the hands-on healthy cooking program I created for patients and the community to inspire home cooking. I’m very excited that we’re going into our third year and hope that any Spicebox Travels readers who are in the San Francisco Bay Area will come and take a class! We kicked off yesterday with a demonstration at Macy’s San Francisco, Union Square, in an event co-sponsored by Kaiser Permanente and Hodo, a local producer of excellent tofu and yuba products that is now available nationally. It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed my very engaged and curious audience.

In case you missed the kickoff, come and join us in the Thrive Kitchen! We’re open for registration for the inaugural class of our third year, on 1/9, Soups and Salads of the World. By then, you just might be ready for a reset on your food choices after the holidays. Registration information is available by contacting SFHealthEd@KP.org or calling 415-833-3450.

Speaking of holidays, over Thanksgiving I had a chance to revisit my old stomping grounds in Singapore, where I spent my junior year of college. It’s changed quite a bit (so many more buildings and people!) but also not at all– you can still eat deliciously, on the cheap, in hawker centers. This time, I took advantage of the internet, which did not exist when I studied there (gasp!) to more efficiently locate the “best” hawkers for each local dish. (Watch this space for an upcoming photo tour, coming soon.)

Besides sampling local flavors, we also made a few trips to Gardens by the Bay, a well curated botanical garden that includes these futuristic Supertrees you might have seen if you watched the Crazy Rich Asians films (which you most definitely should if you haven’t!). By day, they look otherworldly. At night, every night, these turn into a music and light show that’s like no other spectacle. I loved it.